Editor’s Note: I Threw this up in about two hours, and this is my first post in months. Don’t judge me.

Also Bahamut Six isn’t meant to be a political blog, but since SOPA/PIPA directly affects the future of this blog, I can’t exactly stay quiet about an issue that could have severe ramifications on how this blog would normally operate.

It’s been a while, folks. Haven’t completely abandoned the blog world, but real life has had a hand in more or less putting it waaay on the back burner. It happens. Working 6 days a week continuously and all of that other so-called fun stuff in the hodgepodge us humans call adulthood tends to do that.

And then some event will always drive me back to ranting via the keyboard…

These bills, drafted with some massive lobbying and influence from the Record, Television and Film industry giants in the United States (who else?), would if passed, expand the power of the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to enforce its ability of the law to protect the interests of Intellectual Property Holders (IPH), specifically those of said Record, Television and Film industries by (supposedly) curbing the illegal downloading and streaming of media online, particularly to websites out of the reach of US jurisdiction. It would place the burden of “policing” potential infringing content squarely on intermediary services such as Internet Service Providers (ISP’s), by effectively BLACKLISTING any website for any content that the IPH deems infringing … even if it’s supposedly protected by Fair Use Standards, or If it’s even the IPH’s own content, because companies like Warner Bros.didn’t even give enough of a shit to bother to check.

Here’s my thing: While I do support some regulation of Intellectual Property, I feel SOPA and PIPA give too much power to corporate entities who would use the law, not to solely protect the rights of IPH’s, but to indirectly silence opposition to their property, stifle competition, and to effectively censor the internet, kinda like what they do now, but on steroids, kneecaping the somewhat-open access to information that you and I can enjoy today.

In some of the biggest irony, SOPA and PIPA will potentially criminalize the type of software used to circumvent censored internet infrastructure in other countries, particularly in China and Iran, even as The US State Department has made it a goal to aid organizations that develop and deploy this type of software to the citizens of those regimes.

It also allows major corporations the potential to essentially censor ANYTHING they deem infringing, even if it is unintentional and innocuous.

Imagine if Facebook was blacklisted under the proposed law via a court order today because some suit at MTV Legal Dept. lost their shit when they saw a Hyperlink to a GIF of a dancing pit-bull with Snooki’s head on it that some user posted up, and felt that the user violated the MTV’s IPH rights by using her likeness? Now what if that Hyperlink wasn’t directly related to the gif but the link to some event that depended on Social Media participation? What if the event was a protest about animal cruelty? And what if no one showed up, and… Okay, I’m talking out of my ass, but hey, this could be the new normal under THESE, FUCKING, BILLS!!!

Look, Sometimes I gotta use a stupid example to get stupid people to actually pay attention to my stupid bullshit.

Since most of the mainstream, i.e. some of you, has only become familiar with SOPA/PIPA Today, and since you can’t get into Wikipedia or giggle at Rage Comics on Reddit, It’s probably a really good time to educate yourselves on a pair of legislation that, if passed could become the biggest setback to the internet since Facebook became available to the general public and was no longer just limited to college kids.

Here are the links to the bills in question:

– SOPA: H.R. 3261
– PIPA: S.968
– Also, look up S.978, The Commercial Felony Streaming Act, which would In particular, would make the act of unauthorized streaming a FELONY offense, with a maximum penalty of FIVE YEARS IN PRISON for ten such infringements in 180 Days.

YES, YOU READ THAT RIGHT, Five years of being locked up in the Klink, with REAL Criminals (you know, murderers and rapists) and having to live in the constant danger of involuntary man-on-man buttsechs, and having the rest of your life essentially derailed from a the effects of a serious criminal record because you forgot to pay attention to the timespan of the 10 pieces of content you uploaded/and/or streamed/and/or FUCKING HOTLINKED on your blog on Day 179. While much of this bill is somewhat DOA, much of it’s language has been rolled into SOPA.

So, in closing, educate, petition, and bitch. Kill this Bill or Kill the Internet, your choice.

Also, if get in contact with your local U.S. Representative AND Senator, and leave a nasty phone call to them, since that seems to be the only way they listen to the 99% these days. Or put your name on some of the petitions available on Wikipedia, or Google.

Lastly, here’s a digest of the provisions of the bills, and the methods of SOPA/PIPA would be enforced
(NOTE: I threw all of this up in a hour, and I Don’t know all of my net terminology. Call me on my BS, but don’t make fun of me too badly)

Infringement, as defined under PIPA [Lasily Paraphrased]:
IPH Infringement is the distribution of illegal copies, counterfeit goods or anything defined as “Anti-DRM technology”

Under Both: IPH’s via the DOJ will have the authority to serve a court order on the infringing website. Said targets of a court order can also include ISP’s, Online Advertising Services, Search engines and even other sites that link to the infringing content via embedded software.
– Which, by that definition, Bahamut Six would go bye-bye!_!

Immunity is only granted to any intermediaries who voluntarily blacklist an infringing website.

– Bear in mind, the De-Listing of a result on a Search Engine query is already quite commonplace these days with DCMA Cease-and-Desist orders (try to look up any mainstream music from Megaupload or Rapidshit via Google, lately?).- However, DNS Blocking goes one step further: It would cut off all conventional access to the infringing website, including hyperlinks.

Under PIPA: The site would still accessible via its Internet Protocol (IP) Address. However, with any hyperlinks to that site would be disabled and since most muggles in the mainstream aren’t that net savvy, it would effectively take down the site, without “all out” taking it down.

Under Both: Effectively criminalize the development and distribution of software (Secure Shell (SSH) VPN, Privacy, Proxy or Anonymization, for example) designed to circumvent DNS blocking, including software that was intended specifically for those purposes.